Special Events

9/11/10 to 10/30/10

Join us at the PFA Theater for several special film-related performances and events, including screenings copresented with the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention (9/11) and the Dance and the State In East Asia Conference (9/11); Home Movie Day (10/16); the complete Metropolis (10/19); and two Readings on Cinema, on “skyscraper cinema” (10/28) and San Francisco movie theaters (10/30).

Read full description

  • Home Movie Day, October 16

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Readings on Cinema: Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres

    • Saturday, October 30 5:00 PM

    R.A. McBride, Julie Lindow, Katherine Petrin, Melinda Stone, and others in person. A slide-show and essay presentation on existing or abandoned San Francisco movie theaters, with photographs by R.A. McBride that reveal both the grandeur of their architecture and the everyday details of film exhibition. (60 mins)

  • Readings on Cinema: Safety Last

    • Thursday, October 28 7:00 PM

    (Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, U.S., 1923). Introduced by Merrill Schleier. Judith Rosenberg on piano. Famous for Lloyd's clock-hanging stunt, this is "a model of comic economy that's also a model of one man's place in the economy."-Village Voice. With short Never Weaken. (104 mins)

  • The Complete Metropolis

    • Tuesday, October 19 7:00 PM

    Fritz Lang (Germany, 1926). Judith Rosenberg on Piano. The newly discovered, 25-minutes-longer print of Fritz Lang's gorgeous, dystopian classic, "a crazed, pathetic ballet of mechanized ant-man in revolt against his Utopian overlords."-Monthly Film Bulletin (148 mins)

  • Home Movie Day Film Check-In

    • Saturday, October 16 11:00 AM

    Share your adventures with us on 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm formats. Bring them to PFA's offices by August 31, or if you are unable to drop them off ahead of time, bring them to the PFA Theater between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Home Movie Day.

  • Home Movie Day Screening

    • Saturday, October 16 1:00 PM

    Home Moviemakers in person. Hop on your bike, take a train, or hit the beach with this compilation of home-movie travelogues from the famous and the next-door, starring Lon Chaney, James Broughton, and you, the audience. Gathered from the PFA Collection and audience submissions! (c. 180 mins)

  • I Hear What You See: The Old-Time World of Kenny Hall

    • Saturday, September 11 4:00 PM

    Chris Simon (U.S., 2010). Kenny Hall, Chris Simon, and Alice Gerrard in person. The blind old-time fiddler/mandolin player Kenny Hall is the subject of this bouncy portrait of life and music. With short Sprout Wings and Fly. (75 mins)

  • Yang Bang Xi: The Eight Model Works

    • Saturday, September 11 6:30 PM

    Yan Ting Yuen (The Netherlands, 2005). Introduced by Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak and Chen Xiaomei. The "eight model works" were Communist China's all-singing, all-dancing propaganda retort to Hollywood, selling Maoism with lots of leg. Ting Yuen Yan's documentary looks at the movies, the people who starred in them, and the people who still watch them today. (90 mins)